Saturday, June 19, 2010

Dreams!{Kate&Leopold}

DREAMS! is a philosophical article I wrote based on the filmof James Mangold,'Kate&Leopold'. I tried to see why we do like so muchall the fairy tales and why we prefer mostly the dreams than the 'reality'of our daily life.Dreams are sometimes so beautiful that we are ready toadmit and accept them as a truth. I tried to suppose the 'location' of such a potential...

Few days ago, Kate, before her casual encounter and her short-termacquaintance and familiarity with Leopold, was the most rational, themost realistic and the most pragmatic young woman who could exist.Despite of her intimacy with Stuart, she never believed a word of himabout his physics 'theory' related to 'time portal' or 'time travel'. In factshe considered him 'mentally ill'. On the other hand this same young woman in the eyes of her boss JJ,was a rare specimen among women, the only one who never used tobecome 'prey of dillusion' or some 'illusions', always lucid, she wasnever obsessed with 'beauty' or 'seduction', considering everythingwith 'objectivity'. Now Kate was in love with Leopold and ready to throw herself overthe bridge, the only way to join Leopold. Because of this love , sherenounced and gave up all her career ambitions and 'believed' every-thing about the 'time portal' Stuart explained briefly in the taxi. On thebridge, it didn't matter anymore if she would be collapsed on the groundor drowned in the water, she was ready to believe all sort of 'nonsensefairy tales', 'time portal' included. The hope of finding and joining Leopold was so strong that living without the man she loved had nomeaning. In fact, Kate was ready to die. What happened then to her rationalityor her 'lucidity'? Did love make her 'crazy' ?

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Why we dream about a perfect world where everything is possible ?Why the beauty of dreams is so attractive that we take it as a truth ?Why do we become depressed or mad when our dreams don't cometrue or we commit suicide because of this failure ? Why we dream about an eternal happiness and we prefer more oftenthe fairy tales and myths to the 'reality' of the 'real world'? Why we areso attracted by the science-fiction stories where all the laws of nature are broken? Weren't we before somewhere which was absolutelyperfect, a sort of 'paradise' that we kept its 'memory' in a hidden andunknown corner of our brain, which appears time to time in ourconsciousness? Why do we aspire after this 'lost paradise'? Why do we consider 'death' as an injustice and we mourn the 'lost'of our beloved ones? Don't we all wish to spend an 'eternal happy life'with them? Why do we refer often to the past and speculate on theevents happened and everything done, wishing to change the wholepattern or their trend in order they become pleasant and perfect withthe hope of restoring the losses, the failures and the damages?

Maybe all the fairy tales and myths remind us this far and forgottenexperience we had 'somewhere' or 'someday' . Aren't all the worksand creations of all 'artists' in painting, architecture, music, poetry,story-writing, film producing and so , the reminiscence of this lost worldof our 'past' in the universe, a world of magnificent palaces andgardens inhabited only by princes and princesses? Then we regretthat we have been entrapped in this 'ugly', 'defective' spacetime 'dimension' ruled by the strict laws of nature. Our nostalgia of a perfect world doesn't mean that such a world hadexisted and we were 'living' there as a part of it ?

Why do we procreate? Why do we produce all sort of creative worksin all fields? Isn't it our aspiration and eagerness to leave a trace ofour existence in this 'finite' world and to transmit to the posterityeverything we have and anything we are and 'eternize' ourselves?

Isn't the essence or the secret key of all our endeavours some sort of'love' ? The same love which unifies two living creatures for procreation,stimulates the musicians, poets, painters, architects and all artists tocreate works which would resist the 'flow' of time and would last maybe'forever'?

Why do we like so much travelling and why the travels mean so muchto us? Always travelling and moving , doesn't matter if it is in space orin time , but always moving and travelling. What is the purpose of all our moving or travelling? The quest ofperfection or escaping our 'miserable' human condition? Finding somenew horizons to forget our temporality, imperfection or to join our belovedones? Given each 'space' has its own 'past', 'time' or 'history', aren'tall our 'displacements' and moving in 'space',consequently a sort of timetravel ?

Why we crave so much for time travelling? To find our lost beloved onesor to see our descendants or simply because of 'scientific' curiosity ?The love of finding all the dearest ones we lost or the love of joiningthe man or the woman of our dreams doesn't mean that we all aspireto become one soul with them because somewhere in the memory of theUniverse we were just One ?